Flourishing programs in 90+ disciplines. A vibrant Christian mission. $50 million
in new campus construction. Championship athletics. 94% placement within 6 months
of graduation. There’s never been a better time to consider Hope College.

As a member of the MIAA and NCAA Division III associations, Hope College sponsors
22 varsity sports for men and women. The college is home to the 2014 NCAA Division
III National Championship women’s volleyball team.

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Laura McMullen

Laura McMullen began working at Hope in December 2016. Prior to this, she worked
at Calvin College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in program management,
office management and event planning roles.

Laura's work responsibilities at Hope College include:

Program manager for the Office of Research and Scholarship

Supporting the associate dean for research and scholarship

Coordinating the annual Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Performance

Coordinating the Summer Hope Academic Research Program (SHARP)

Program manager for the Day1 Program

Education

M.A., teaching English to speakers of other languages, Cornerstone University, 2012

Second Teaching Certificate, teaching English to speakers of other languages, University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2006

B.A., history and social studies secondary education, Bethel University, 2002

Professional Experience

Beyond working in academia, Laura has also enjoyed several years of working with immigrants
and refugees.

Laura holds an M.A. in TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) and
has spent a decade teaching, both as a secondary school teacher in Orange County Schools
in Hillsborough, North Carolina, and an English as an additional language teacher
to adult learners in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As part of her service to the TESOL community,
she also served for several years as an editor for the Christian English Language
Educators Association newsletter.

Why Do You Love Hope?

Serving in academia means that every day Laura gets to support those who are doing
cutting-edge research to change the world. She supports those who are changing lives
of individual students through the sort of mentoring that can happen well in a small
liberal arts college, and she helps make additional life-changing programs possible. She
loves being able to be a part of a faith community where scholarship, leadership and
service are all integral to what Hope does.

Outside the College

Outside the college, Laura enjoys spending time with her three children, running and
writing.

She has an insatiable love of linguistics, loves playing with language and learning
new languages. If you want to make her day, drop by her office for an impromptu conversation
in Russian or American Sign Language, or a discussion of the uses of gerunds or a
well-formed malaprop.

If you can't speak Russian or ASL, at points in the past she has also studied or been
exposed to Bulgarian, Chinese (Mandarin), Lingala, Spanish and French. Feel free to
strike up a conversation in any of these for an instant connection. Sadly, her knowledge
of most of these has now dwindled to one or two phrases expressively, and only a little
more than that receptively.

Laura also enjoys giving back to the community as a volunteer in the NICU at DeVos
Children's Hospital (the hospital that saved her child's life). She is also involved
in supporting preemie parents through regular contributions to online journals, and
is undergoing training to be an advocate for DeafBlind children through DB Central.